The first volume of ‘Time after yesterday’ reunites some of the most interesting contemporary musical pieces for unaccompanied clarinet from the 20th & 21st centuries, commemorating 100 years of the creation of the first and most influential work for solo clarinet of the modern era: Stravinsky’s ‘Three pieces’ for solo clarinet.
Three Pieces for clarinet solo (1919)
Igor Stravinsky’s ‘Three pieces’ for clarinet solo, dated 1919 (but probably completed the year before) it is certainly the most influential work of the repertoire of unaccompanied clarinet.
Dedicated to Werner Reinhart -a businessman and amateur clarinetist who supported economically the composer during his time in Switzerland- the work features a great sense of what I would call ‘chamber ballet music’. While the first piece is rather introspective, the second reminds us many of the dance gestures from his big ballets (Le Sacre, Petruschka, …). The third piece is an extroverted groovy piece featuring many jazzy and bluesy idioms.
Prelude (1987)
Written in 1987, Krzysztof Penderecki achieves to create in his 4-minute piece ‘Prelude’ one of the strongest but proportionally smoothest expansions (and distensions) of musical emotions in a solo piece, which seems to be built exactly how an architect would build a very high skyscraper. In this piece the composer seems to have quoted himself with some music material from his clarinet concerto (original conceived as a viola concerto).
Ixor (1956)
Giacinto Scelsi’s music is certainly one of a kind. This solo work for clarinet (or other single reed instrument) entitled ‘IXOR’ and written 1956 is a short but nevertheless great piece of the solo clarinet literature, but for some reason unknown to me, it is hardly ever considered as part of the main repertoire of the instrument, although other pieces by this composer have recently seen some sort of revival in the contemporary music scene. Scelsi’s music seems to be built based on a very simple but dense spectrum of sound, originated in this case the initial phrase of the first episode, which consist in one single pitch. The story telling in Scelsi’s music shows to me an unexplainable beautiful sense of proportions; in this abstract piece of music, beauty and proportion are indeed two concepts that seem to have been clearly and strongly integrated. Elegance and rudeness are combined to a high sense of aesthetic equilibrium.
Sonate pour clarinette seule (1963)
Although Tiberiu Olah’s main choral works are rarely performed outside Romania and Hungary (the countries where he was born and he developed his career, respectively) his solo pieces for wind instruments are highly appreciated internationally (at least by performers).
He is known for having been a very wise musician and teacher; probably one of the most important scholars of the 20th century in the musical environment. His ‘Sonata’ for solo clarinet is written in one single movement and shows a very complex technique in terms of compositional discourse; specially regarding elements like his fantastic management of the rhythmic patterns (sometimes quite groovy, and in general very steady and consistent), his rich sense polyphony, and his great knowledge of the particular clarinet attributes and possibilities.
Moment Musical (1947)
Hanns Eisler’s ‘Moment musical’ is a beautiful but rare piece, which has been published (by Breitkopf & Härtel) only in 2017… 70 years after it was written, or even more, as it is dated on 1947, but quite probably written before (it might have been was conceived to accompany the theater play ‘Night Music’ by Clifford Odets, although probably not finally performed then in the comedy).
It is a sort of rhapsodic ballad which features some bluesy elements, which have enriched Eisler’s music in his years during and after the war, when he was living in the USA.
Capriccio (1946)
Heinrich Sutermeister’s ‘Capriccio’ was written as a compulsory piece to be played by the clarinetists taking part of the Geneva Music Competition of the year 1957. The sober but graceful and dance-like main theme (which is constantly interrupted by some hectic and rude impulses) is followed by a melodic and ballad-like middle section. After the reprise, many of the previously presented elements are combined, closing the piece with a humorous coda.
Sonata (1972)
Edison Denisov‘s ‘Sonata’ is very probably one of the most performed works written for solo clarinet in these days. While the first movement sounds like a doubtful monologue, the second sounds rather like an schizophrenic and incoherent agitated explosion of musical emotions.
Lied (1983)
The richness of the expressive capacity that makes Luciano Berio‘s ‘Lied’ a masterpiece is quite probably related to the management of its beautiful melodic materials which live in perfect harmony together with the agitation of disruptive elements throughout the piece. Tempo indications and breath marks help to create an atmosphere of uncertain flowing time, but which happens with an extreme musical coherence.
Rechant (2008)
Heinz Holliger composed ‘Rechant’ in the memory of Thomas Friedli, one of the most sensitive clarinetists of our times, who passed away when he accidentally fell down a cliff while climbing a mountain in Madeira. The piece is written respecting an almost strict sequence of 7 pitches that explore the clarinet not only through all its range of extension, but also in terms of sonorous and expressive possibilities.
Fantasie (1993)
Jörg Widmann‘s ‘Fantasie’, written in 1993, quickly became a central piece of the clarinetistic repertoire. Although it is an early work of his, the composer (a fantastic clarinetist himself) makes use of all his vast knowledge of the instrument in a very wise but also cool, groovy and sexy fashion.
Elegía Cromañón (2015)
I wrote ‘Elegía Cromañón’ in 2015, when I was about to go on tour to Argentina. In that country, back in 2004, a concert of a rock and roll band happening at the end of the year (in a big club in Buenos Aires called Cromañón) ended up in a huge tragedy in which about 200 young people died on a sudden massive fire during the concert, and still today this sad episode has a big impact not only in many families affected and the Argentinian society altogether, but also it does have a strong meaning to me. I always believed in music as something that could bring us to the ultimate level of freedom and emancipation; the big contradiction I found between that freedom and the death of dozens of innocent people, was conflicting in my heart and mind until I could finally find a little bit of peace once I finished writing this work. Elements of the language of rock and roll music, melodies from the group playing that night, melodies of a male choir song I heard once in a monastery in South Germany, and other concrete and abstract materials are set together in this piece which evoques some feelings of a mother who lost his son in that painful night.
severlasalreves (2018)
On my work ‘severlasalreves’ (dedicated to my friend Christoph Zimper), some relation with the mirroring technique of composing in Boulez’s ‘Domaines’ might be found. I particularly wanted to study the meaning and the unidirectional movement of time. Written within two hours in a bus ride between Tokyo and Nagoya, each of the 21 mirroring interventions of this piece (to be performed in the order of the performer’s choice) came as a possibility to challenge the absurdity of the phenomenon in which (because of the resonance of any non-vacuum medium) every sound eventually experiments a diminuendo or fade out at its end (even if this happens very fast and is almost unappreciable).